Letters (April 25, 2018)

• Superintendent Michelle Hutchins Replies To Her Critics
• Listen To Marbut
• Keep Them Separate
• Rogers Has Hope
• One Of Those Guys
• Where's Bongo Bill?
• Keep It Up, Libs

SUPERINTENDENT MICHELLE HUTCHINS REPLIES TO HER CRITICS

Dear Community,

I appreciate people standing up and expressing their views of what is going wrong. It is my number one priority to create a trustful, respectful and collaborative working environment for every employee. It is extremely difficult to respond to such vague condemnation. I do hope my detractors never themselves face a denunciation like this one. I am, however, grateful that the authors of the letter recognize my "good intentions.”

I am not claiming that I have not made mistakes, as I know I have. I faced and continue to face my errors so that I learn and grow. I think even my detractors will concede that I've always faced up to my mistakes and that I have never been unavailable to anybody in the district who wanted to talk to me or criticize me.

While we address areas that need improvement, our test scores are up, support for our schools among parents and the larger community remains strong and we continue to send an impressively large number of our graduates on to college.

Respectfully, 

Michelle Hutchins, Superintendent of Schools

Anderson Valley Unified School District

LISTEN TO MARBUT

To the Editor:

Greetings from South Ukiah, still proud lands that City Hall has forsaken. I arrived in Ukiah when it was known as one of the 100 best small towns in America. Last year Mendocino County attained the dubious honor of being #1 in per capita homeless in the nation. I’ve heard from elected officials and others that this really isn’t the case, so I challenged them. Who has a higher per capita homeless rate than Mendocino County? So far no response, just an eloquent silence.

How did we get here? Clearly it’s either bad planning or no planning. I ask you to consider the findings of a dispassionate, thoughtful expert. On March 15th Dr. Robert Marbut delivered his eye opening 53 page report to the public, available online here: mendocinocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=20042

He clearly states his recommendations to mitigate our current crisis. He talks about adopting a common nomenclature so all stakeholders are on the same page, enrolling everyone who utilizes our services in the “Homeless Management Information System” (HMIS), using strategic/systemic versus tactical/agency centered approaches, eliminating “silos of influence,” and avoiding duplication of services to prevent “shopping” (“guests” 86’d from one program only to mosey down the block and enroll in another). Dr. Marbut says for a community of our size, we need only one site for a homeless center. If Ukiah’s City Council votes to approve the NorCal Christian Ministries project at 150 Luce Avenue, then Ukiah will have five centers. That is going the wrong way…up…and openly flouting many of Dr. Marbut’s recommendations.

I wish to make the following very clear. I know and respect the people behind the NorCal Ministries project — they are nice, thoughtful, compassionate, and honorable. They sincerely want to help the downtrodden and I wish them the best. However, I think Dr. Marbut has the experience, the track record, that require the community and Ukiah City Council to slow down and do it right.

In the meantime, is there any reason why Plowshares or RCS’s day shelter could not accommodate NorCal’s program in their slew of offerings? I recall that is what the community was told when both the Plowshares and RCS projects were approved. I sincerely hope that this was not a bait and switch, and that one of these existing entities will take NorCal’s program under their wing.

During the 10/04/2017 appeal of the RCS project at 1045 South State, a petition was submitted asking for a moratorium on all Ukiah homeless related planning decisions until there was a plan in place to measure the success or failure of any such project within Ukiah city limits, specifically to lessen the impact of homelessness on our community. The moratorium petition was signed by 780 Ukiah citizens, shoppers, and voters. The City Council ignored the petition and unanimously voted to approve the project.

Do Ukiah citizens really want the enabling, expanding status quo or is it time to try something else? Taxpayers want to see results, not platitudes or more empty promises. We all want to help the homeless lift themselves from our streets, stop loitering in front of our businesses, stop camping in our parks and stream beds, give them hope, and have them re-enter productive society. Per Dr. Marbut’s recommendations; all homeless people should be funneled through a single organization, entered in the HMIS, diagnosed, and prescribed a treatment program. Each person in therapy will then be tracked and the progress they make to better themselves makes them eligible for additional services. Utilize incentives that positively reinforce good behaviors. Public or private programs that continue to enable bad behavior must be shut down. Laws already on the books should be vigorously enforced by UPD. Those ‘guests’ unwilling to productively engage with our local homeless services should be encouraged to seek help in a different community.

“Street Graduation Rates,” or success attained by each homeless program, must be transparent and posted for public viewing on the City’s website. Those entrenched in, and entrapped by, the status quo will doubtless complain.

Until Ukiah’s City Council sets up this structure, the current harebrained approach of unanimously approving any program or project dealing with the “Homeless” should be tabled or denied. Otherwise, we can expect a lot more of the same.

Please voice your opinion. The next City Council meeting is April 18 at 6 p.m.

Edward Haynes

Ukiah

KEEP THEM SEPARATE

To the Editor:

An Open Letter to Editor, to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and to the Mendocino County Museum Advisory Board:

I disagree with the plan to consolidate three county services — the libraries, the county museum, and parks — into one Cultural Services Agency. The reasons given for this plan seem rather limp, such as to “provide greater access across all demographics to information, cultural resources, etc.” In reality, such access already exists if these organizations have adequate funding and energetic leadership to help county residents learn how to connect, learn, and grow in our libraries, museum, and parks.

I will focus on advocating for the Mendocino County Museum as a volunteer who put in hundreds of hours from December 2015 to the present in helping guest curate and promote the exhibit “Willits Main Street: Then and Now,” with my collaborator Judi Berdis. Doing over 50 interviews for this exhibit with local residents informed me not only about the history of our county, but also about the value of the county museum and what it needs to operate well.

Since Alison Glassey’s leave of absence and resignation as of June 2017, the reduced staff has struggled to function to the museum’s utmost capacity. When Herb Pruett helped establish the museum in 1972, he had seven or eight full time staff working there. Now the museum is down to two full time employees (a curator and administrative assistant), one very part-time director, and two very part-time employees who help run the front desk and the gift shop. That’s not enough to bring our museum up to snuff!

In recent years, the museum sponsored a grand Kinetic Carnivale, a Mushroom and Wine tour, the county-wide Museum Road Show, and many other smaller events and programs that pulled in visitors from across the county and beyond. Well managed, the museum can serve as a county community center with these kinds of events, along with book readings, lectures, tours, and more, all of which could help the museum pay for creating intriguing exhibits.

Like the libraries and parks, the museum needs to have experienced leadership, and more of it, not less, as well as more funding to bring the museum into the 21st century as a model institution for learning about and experiencing our rich county history. As curators, Judi and I were often told what we could not do with the limited funds of the museum. But look at what cutting-edge museums are able to create, using exciting, interactive exhibits that draw young people into history. The most recent permanent exhibit, Woven Worlds on the Native peoples of Mendocino County created by Victoria Patterson, does do that with video, and colorful, tactile, and interactive devices. The whole museum could be renewed with such innovative designs.

Our county museum needs to maintain its own identity and have a surge of support to renovate old exhibits and dream up new ones. The newly hired curator, Karen Mattson, brings wonderful professional experience. She will surely initiate new ways of helping us see our county’s history and future. It may be time to put away the “garage” of wagons and the years-long store fronts in the main exhibit hall and try some other exhibits that will enhance new understandings of our communities in this county.

Let’s be open minded about how to support this valued institution, which typically draws over 3,700 people a year as is, and could draw more. We should be enhancing our educational access and tourism, not finding ways to diminish what our institutions can provide.

Kim Bancroft

Willits

ROGERS HAS HOPE

Dear AVA,

As always I hope all (or at least most) is well on the homefront with you and yours. My adventure continues in the so-called justice system. There continues to be hope. A 30 year professor of law at UCSF has taken my case pro bono working with my paralegal, Howard Herships. They are seeking to overturn my conviction based on the unethical interaction between prosecutor Tim Stoen and my paid counsel, Masuda, who Stoen falsely threatened to call as a witness only to create a conflict so he could walk with my $125,000 retainer! (I'm awaiting a court date.)

The State Bar is also pursuing both Stoen and Masuda on separate issues. My civil lawsuit is also plugging along in court. Time will tell.

I see Westport made news with the suicide of that family off a cliff. I know that spot very well. On several occasions people would push junker cars off that cliff. Our Westport fire department would get called by tourists thinking someone had driven off that road.

Fact is, there is no curve in the highway there. It's a pull-out that you can't misjudge. Those ladies knew what they were doing, killing all their kids!

Again, people kill people, not guns, not cars, not bombs. Sick people!

San Quentin has recently been reclassified as a "non-designated" prison which means that the administration can bring protective custody prisoners here in general population. Child molesters and rapists to name a few. Things are shaking to say the least. 

I’m making the best of things. I'm pitching on the softball team this year. At 60 it's a challenge to play with 20 and 30-year-olds. Physically I feel 30! Praise God for my strength. Hopefully this will be the last year behind bars. I look forward to enjoying a cold brew and real meal one day with you.

Thanks for all you do. Your paper continues to print the truth, not fake news with an agenda!

God bless / your friend,

Kenny Rogers

San Quentin

ONE OF THOSE GUYS

AVA

First I want to thank you for sending me your paper. I really enjoy it and it is something I've grown to look forward to weekly. I hope that you will extend me being able to receive it.

I've been reading about Tai Abreu the last couple of weeks and knowing Tai for the last three years I believe he really is one of "those guys" who deserves a second chance. He just doesn't belong in prison. He is on a yard full of "guys like me." And he stays positive and focused. He always has a smile on his face and a greeting. We are polar opposites. And I think it's really great for you all to try to bring attention to his case and hopefully some help to this situation.

Sincerely,

Walter K. Miller

High Desert State Prison

WHERE'S BONGO BILL?

AVA

As an old friend of several now deceased people you knew, such as Barbara Champion (whose trailer I met you in once) and Dan Tower, I write (from Myanmar) to ask you about the railroaded prisoner “Bongo Bill.” Is he still incarcerated? The Mendocino Businessmen’s Association vis a vis the cops and fascist fire department there “got rid” of him long ago now. Can you provide his address in Corcoran Prison, if he is still there? Knowing the story and as a fellow human being I am interested.

Thank you,

Tim Deppe

ms notes: According to the CDCR Inmate Locator William Joseph Newport, K14307, age 52, is currently incarcerated at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, 900 Quebec Ave. Corcoran CA 93212. He was incarcerated in 1996. He is eligible for parole in November of 2025. The last we heard from him was back in 2013: www.theava.com/archives/23909

KEEP IT UP, LIBS

Editor,

A man and a woman and their two daughters went on a trip over Mountain View Road or Fish Rock Road or one of those unpopulated roads. At about midnight their car broke down. They had no cell phone reception. They didn't know what to do. Nobody came by. Suddenly a car came by with four drunk guys in it. They got out and fooled around a little bit. The people in the car just sat there and locked the doors and windows. One of the guys got a rock and broke the windows. Then they got the whole family out of the car except the man. They put an arm around his neck and killed him there. Then they brutally raped the woman and girls right before his eyes. He couldn't do anything about it. He never had anything to fight with. Anybody with any sense would know that if you carry a little handgun, just the presence of that gun would have deterred the whole operation. The drunks would have run back in the car and left. All he had to do was show it to them. He did not have to fire it. 90% of the time they will leave if you just show them a firearm. So you gun-hating bastards out there who think that guns are so dangerous, think how many lives an empty gun could save from criminals and bad people. If you keep on attacking the Second Amendment, you liberals, there will be a day when many many people are going to be in that same position and can do nothing about it. Maybe you ought to think about that a little bit before you start crying about gun control. Okay? Read this and think about it.

God bless Donald Trump.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

PS. Since 1950 all mass murders have been committed in the United States in gun-free zones. All mass murders, most of them, 90% of them, in gun-free zones. So keep it up you liberals. Keep it up.